Living like a local in Helsinki

Menu

Helsinki city bikes

Lately I have been writing a lot about “best things” in Helsinki. This writing is somehow the same theme… You see, one of the best ways to explore town is biking. And since I’ve had some great experiences bicycling around foreign towns like Singapore and Nice I want to tell for you dear readers how to bicycle easily in Helsinki. Cycling is quite easy in Helsinki – not great town for bicycling like Copenhagen – but pretty good anyway. There are many bicycle paths but you have to be prepared to bike also on streets with cars. I wrote last autumn about getting around in Helsinki – some tips there as well.

For tourist there is always a problem to think were to hire a bike. This problem is solved in Helsinki – there are city bikes all over the downtown – around 50 locations to pick a bike. One of the locations is in front of President Castle which is shown on a picture above. You can buy daily, weekly or yearly pass for bikes. Pass covers up to 30 minutes of biking per time. This 30 minutes time is enough to bike from one station to another (since stations are very close to each other). After 30 minutes there will be additional charge for biking longer time. After 5 hours there is a penalty of 80 euros so don’t use bike for more than 5 hours! Since the pricing is like this, there are almost always some bikes at the stations. You find bike stations for example from Railway Station, Kauppatori and Hietaniemen tori (which has also this great flea market I wrote last autumn).

You find more information about city bikes here – there you find English information about renting process, map of all stations as well as how many bikes there are right now in every station.